Your 2013 Resolution: Online Presentations

We know that most people will plan to “Lose weight”, “Clean the garage”, or “Quit (bad habit here)”.

You can also do something few think of: apply New Years’ resolutions to your workplace. That could mean trying new ideas and new methods, or reaching out to new audiences.

You could also try attacking a key metric in a focused way: “This is the year we double the response on our sales videos”, or “This year I will improve message retention by 30%.”

I say you don’t have to just pick one. Try all of it. Try something new that reaches more people and improves message retention and response rates.

2013 is the year to get on board with this “online presentations” thing.

Why Online Presentations?

For one, they’re more personal.

It’s true that in-person, face-to-face presentations are still popular for marketing professionals and trainers, with networking and events at the top of the list. This is no doubt because, as many marketers probably witness, personal meetings deliver the highest quality leads. For trainers, the classroom is still the place to maximize retention.

In other words, people who have gone to an event, sought you out, and gave you permission to continue the relationship are more likely to remember you and what you showed them.

This should translate to increased interest from online video as well, because it helps to see a person delivering a presentation rather than simply hearing them or reading their writing. Look at how we tend to think we know a celebrity because we’ve seen them perform on television. To see a person in video is almost as good as meeting them.

Another reason is that they’re more versatile.

An online presentation can be based on a video and slideshow, or just a video, or a series of articles and images, or links to surveys, or all of the above. Instead of limiting you to one type of medium, an online presentation lets you do what you want.

Marketers and trainers alike can craft several ways to use online slideshows and presentations, including presenting case studies, offering a deeper level of content without issuing a data dump, repurposing old content, and customizing content for different viewers.

Something for Everyone

Online presentations can deliver your message, whether it is a marketing or sales pitch, or for training purposes, in different ways to different people. Presentation Magazine illustrates that it is important to use visual aids to improve retention. While it’s believed that some folks respond to video, text, or images, it’s really the use of relevant images that can best drive home a message.

As for video alone, there’s no doubt that’s why online video will continue to show massive growth for both consumer and B2B uses. But a lot of those videos can and will be greatly improved by accompanying text, drilldown links and graphics.

So make your resolution to explore online presentations, and good luck!